The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for removing trash from material. More particularly, the present invention relates to removing heavy trash from formerly waste material containing trash, cotton lint, and motes.
During cotton ginning and early textile mill processing, a substantial quantity of good fiber is usually discarded with the trash. Much of this cotton fiber is contained in cotton motes. Cotton motes are those cotton fiber aggregates which are sufficiently dense to be discarded with the trash in conventional cleaning processes. The trash includes such particles as stems, burrs, leaf particles, etc. In order to more effectively utilize the fiber contained within the waste material, it is necessary to remove a substantial quantity of the heavy trash before attempting any further processing of the material.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus which will effectively separate the heavy trash from waste material discarded by cotton gin and early textile mill processing.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an apparatus which removes heavy trash and is simple in operation and construction and can easily be installed in existing cotton processing plants.
These and other objects of the present invention are satisfied by providing an elongated drum with a plurality of finger-shaped baffles arranged on the inner periphery of the drum. The drum is surrounded by a screen having a small opening size to permit the heavy trash to fall through while retaining the motes and some lighter trash. The drum is slowly rotated in order to lift and tumble the material over the finger-shaped baffles.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the plurality of baffles are arranged in two rows disposed 180.degree. apart along the inner periphery of the drum. The baffles are arranged in such a manner that the incoming material is balanced upon the top of the baffles and is pulled apart as the drum rotates. This lifting and dropping action combined with the rotation of the drum acts similar to a vibratory action and tends to separate the trash from the material.
It is further preferred that two rotating drums be provided to increase the efficiency of the apparatus. Also, the trash which drops through the screen is picked up by a conveyor and delivered to a trash disposal system. The present invention could also be utilized in the commonly-assigned copending application of Winch et al for "Total Fiber Recovery Method and Apparatus".